The Frontline Retreat
The banners of Nouvo Lakay were lowered without shame. Victory had come, but the signs were clear—this battle had been a lure, not a conclusion.
Zion gathered his commanders. His voice cut through the war-hardened silence:
"We've won nothing if we stay and bleed in a trap."
Some among the younger warriors murmured protest, but Thalia stepped forward, steel in her tone.
"This is not retreat. This is preparation. And preparation is how we survive gods."
As the warriors dismantled camps and wounded were secured, Ayola dispatched shadow teams ahead and behind—her newly empowered agents, each marked by the same sigil of her divine patron. They would not fight but watch, listen, and learn.
"We lost more to ignorance than to blades," Ayola told Zion. "That ends now."
Nouvo Lakay – Homecomings and Choices
The gates of Nouvo Lakay opened at dusk.
The returning warriors were met not with celebration, but with solemn understanding. The people knew this was not an end—it was the next breath before the plunge.
Zion dismounted in silence. His eyes swept over the new faces—those from the recently accepted tribe, who had remained patient and respectful while waiting. Among them, one woman stood out.
She did not kneel.
She did not speak.
She simply watched Zion with eyes like dying embers and bone-white beads braided into her black hair.
"She sees the veil," whispered one of the elders.
"Maman Brigitte sees through her," said another.
That night, Zion dreamed of graves and crossroads, of ash and riddles, of laughter that chilled and a lantern held between two worlds.
The Selection
At dawn, the sky turned violet. Bells rang—not by human hand, but by divine will.
The people gathered outside the temple.
The woman stepped forward with no name given. Her lips were stained the color of bloodfruit, and when she knelt, her back arched as if held by invisible strings.
Maman Brigitte had chosen.
Flames spiraled from her sigil as it carved itself into her flesh—a split tombstone wrapped in morning glory vines. She rose without screaming. She smiled with eyes half-possessed.
"You keep the living safe," she whispered. "I'll keep the dead quiet."
Her name was spoken that day—Elis—and never again without reverence.
The Second Threat
That night, as Ayola's scouts returned, a fire was lit on Zion's war table.
A map, burned at the edges, was laid before him.
It showed a sigil no one recognized—a tangle of twisted roots with no beginning and no end, drawn in blood.
It had been branded into the ground of a dead village. Everyone gone. No signs of life, no gods, no struggle.
Only silence and the scent of rot.
Zion stared at it for a long moment.
"We're being watched by something that does not